Bobby Johnson, Corey Williams, and the Dixmoor Five: How Intellectual Disabilities Influence Wrongful Convictions

Author: Ashley Osterhout

On December 8th, 1991, Cateresa Matthews was found dead in Dixmoor, Chicago. Ten months later, fifteen-year-old Keno Barnes told police that Jonathan Barr had confessed to him that he, Robert Taylor, and Robert Lee Veal had gotten into a car with Matthews. At that time, Taylor, Veal, and Barr were only fourteen. Throughout the investigation, suspects James Harden and Shainne Sharp, who were both seventeen, were added as potential accomplices. Veal, Taylor, and Sharp signed handwritten statements implicating themselves and the three others. This led to the conviction of the five teenagers, later known as the Dixmoor Five, for the raping and subsequent murder of Matthews. Although DNA evidence on the body of Matthews did not match any of the five, the three guilty pleas guaranteed the sentencing of all five teenagers. In 2009, pro-bono attorneys working in the University of Chicago Exoneration Project demanded further DNA testing. 

In 2010, Veal and Sharp recanted their confessions. Finally, in March of 2011, DNA testing identified William Randolph as a match and probable suspect. The Dixmoor Five were released, but this case was not over. It was revealed that Robert Lee Veal had an IQ of 56 (classifying him as intellectually disabled) and could not read or write at the time of his interviews. His written confession implicated four others in the crime, yet he himself never could have written the confession. Although police claimed that this statement was read to him, Veal’s ability to understand the statement was unclear. Additionally, it was later proven that police presented falsified evidence to Veal to confuse him, exploiting his disability. Sharp, another member of the five, later revealed that he also had a developmental disability. Police also interviewed Sharp and Taylor without a guardian or lawyer present. They physically abused Sharp while presenting him with false evidence. By targeting members of the group who had mental and developmental disabilities, the police managed to receive their desired confessions from Sharp, Taylor, and Veal. Due to the many accounts of misconduct being brought to light during their exonerations, attorneys encouraged the Dixmoor Five to take further action. The Dixmoor Five filed a lawsuit against the State of Illinois on the basis that the state caused forced confessions through coercion, withheld DNA evidence, conducted unconstitutional interrogations, and fabricated evidence.  This led to a settlement of 40 million dollars, the highest settlement for a wrongful conviction in Illinois’ history. 

While this case may come across as an outlier, the presence of intellectual disabilities in false confessions is actually common. In 2000, sixteen-year-old Corey Williams became a suspect in the murder of a pizza deliveryman, which had occurred at his friend’s house in Louisiana. Williams was reported to have severe intellectual and developmental disabilities that led to him sucking his thumb, eating dirt, and behaving similarly to an infant. Despite this, a full night of questioning by police led to his unexpected confession of the crime. While witnesses at the home denied Williams’ involvement, these statements were ignored by law enforcement; Williams was sentenced to death. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that those with intellectual disabilities cannot be on death row, leaving Williams with a new sentence of life in prison. Despite this, the Louisiana Court refused to consider whether his young age or intellectual disability affected his confession. In 2018, attorneys filed a petition asking to reverse Williams’ conviction on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct. Williams gave a guilty plea for lesser offenses in exchange for his release. Although Williams has his freedom today, he was never fully exonerated.

The pattern of misconduct towards intellectually disabled individuals continues with Bobby Johnson. In 2006, seventy-year-old Herbert Fields was shot in New Haven, Connecticut, as part of an armed robbery. Eyewitnesses described two youths fleeing the car. Through these accounts, police arrested sixteen-year-old Bobby Johnson and fourteen-year-old Kwame Wells-Jordan as the two primary suspects. The police used coercive tactics in their interviews, claiming that the boys would receive the death penalty if convicted and probation if they confessed. However, there was a key distinction between the two boys: Johnson was mentally impaired. During the interrogation, Johnson was denied the presence of his parents and presented with fabricated evidence that implicated him in the crime. Following this, Johnson reportedly had a mental breakdown and confessed under extreme pressure. In contrast, Wells-Jordan refused to confess and was set free. Johnson pled guilty and was sentenced to thirty-eight years in prison. This was cut short when it was revealed that forensic evidence had been ignored, leading to Johnson’s exoneration. 

These three cases suggest a pattern of false confessions in intellectually disabled suspects, but statistics solidify this connection. For exonerees with intellectual disabilities, sixty-eight percent of their exonerations were due to a false confession. In comparison, false confessions constitute only eight percent of wrongful convictions for individuals with no known intellectual disabilities. However, these three exonerees were not linked by their intellectual disability alone; their young ages also linked them. Bobby Johnson and Corey Williams were both sixteen, and the Dixmoor Five were all between the ages of fourteen and sixteen at the time of their arrests. Amongst juvenile exonerees, thirty-six percent were freed due to false confessions. Among adult exonerees, only ten percent were freed due to false confessions. Studies reflect that the probability of an individual falsely confessing in a trial is directly tied to their age, with young teenagers being most likely to falsely confess. The false confessions highlighted above share another feature: coercion. Police often induce pressure during interrogations, leading to fear and uncertainty. This primary feature of false confessions is even stronger for intellectually disabled individuals, who report stronger feelings of stress when having negative interactions with others. The heightened anxiety of those with mental disabilities could potentially explain the higher likelihood of their wrongful convictions being based on false confessions. 

However, at the core of these three cases is the systemic injustice of courts admitting these confessions in the first place. In 1986, the case of Colorado v Connelly was brought to the Supreme Court. In this case, Francis Barry Connelly approached a police officer and confessed to a murder that had occurred nearby. Despite the knowledge that Connelly was mentally disabled and prone to hallucinations, he was sentenced. The Colorado State Court ruled that this confession should not be admitted as evidence, claiming that mental disabilities could bar someone from exercising “free will” and “rational intellect,” which the constitution requires for an admissible confession. However, the Supreme Court decided that a confession is invalid only if a police officer used coercion. Thus, “free will” can only be taken through coercive tactics. However, the metric of coercion is not adjusted for intellectually disabled individuals, who experience heightened anxiety in situations like interrogations.

  To create a fairer justice system, we must continue to investigate how interrogations impact intellectually disabled individuals differently. Ideally, our justice system should create protective measures to prevent heightened anxiety and the likelihood of false confessions in intellectually disabled individuals. Our current systemic failures leave many populations vulnerable, but further research and examinations of cases similar to the Dixmoor Five, Corey Williams, and Bobby Johnson may pave a path for change.

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